Eventually the boy emerged from the tube station and headed towards the street. He was alone, and wearing a headset to drown out the sounds of the city; no doubt he’d be listening to something heavy and unpleasant. In his baggy jeans and hoodie he looked so much younger than Adam felt, despite there being only a year’s age difference between them. According to the small printout Adam was holding, Elroy Peterson was twenty-one, and Adam Bradley himself was coming up for twenty-three – but there were worlds between them.
He stepped out from the corner, timing it perfectly so he would bump into the student. He dropped the unzipped leather wallet that had been under his arm and various papers scattered across the pavement. Elroy Peterson’s eyes widened and he yanked his head free of the earbuds.
‘I’m so sorry, man,’ he said.
‘No problem,’ Adam answered, ‘I should have been looking where I was going.’
They both crouched and started to collect up the irrelevant letters.
Adam Bradley smiled.
‘Is there peace in the dark silence of your mind?’ he said.
Peterson’s hand froze, then started trembling slightly. He looked up. He said nothing.
Bradley held out a small piece of notepaper; the only one that counted. He said quietly, ‘There will be a taxi waiting for you here tonight at nine. It will take you where you need to go. I’ll meet you outside. You won’t tell anyone. Do you understand?’
His head moving as if through thick glue, the student nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said.
Bradley leaned forward and pinched the thin skin between the boy’s thumb and forefinger. ‘The dark silence is fine. Ignore it.’
His hand free, he scrabbled at the papers again, letting mindless drivel about his own clumsiness and ineptitude spill from his mouth.
‘Really, no worries, mate,’ Peterson said, ‘I was listening to my iPod; I should’ve been paying attention.’ He handed over the last of the stray sheets and they both stood up. ‘I hope they weren’t in any particular order.’
‘No.’ Bradley smiled. ‘So no harm done.’
‘Good.’ Peterson nodded an awkward goodbye and reinserted his earbuds before carrying on towards his house.
‘No real harm done,’ Bradley muttered again, a satisfied smile twitching at his lips. He waited until Peterson was out of sight before crossing the road and heading down the opposite street where his car was waiting. He had two more visits to make before he could go home and relax for a couple of hours. No rest for the wicked.
Cass had all the lights blazing in the sitting room and kitchen of his flat. He might not believe in ghosts, but neither was he in the mood for the company of the jealous dead. If there were no shadows, then they couldn’t lurk in them. His right nostril was numb and the back of his throat burned. He swallowed a mouthful of beer to try and wash it away. He wasn’t doing the lines frequently enough for a big high, but he felt more awake than he had all day. Cocaine had a place in the world; there was no doubt about that. He’d missed it.
Staring at the computer screen in front of him, he sifted through the old newspaper and online reports of the crash that had killed the parents of the apparently dead baby. There was a picture of Elizabeth and Owen Gray, smiling and carefree, when she was clearly several months pregnant. Another showed them on their fatal holiday; still they smiled, but now the expressions didn’t quite reach all the way to their eyes, and both looked thinner, with lines creasing in places they hadn’t been such a short time earlier.
Cass couldn’t help but feel a link with them. They were strangers’ faces, but they tugged at his own damaged heart. He chopped out another long line. Fuck it. Maybe getting high was exactly what he needed. There was too much loss in the world. His own family were all gone; had this couple’s ‘dead’ child been the much-loved cuckoo at the heart of the Jones family nest? Like Christian and Jessica, they had fair hair; were their blood types a match too?
What choices had they made that led them to their fate? Or had the choices been made for them? He looked down at the patient notes that Jordan had managed to unearth: Jessica Jones and Elizabeth Gray had given birth within minutes of each other, but where Jessica’s birth was natural, Jordan hadn’t mentioned that Elizabeth’s had been a C-section. Had that been planned? Had Elizabeth’s pregnancy been monitored for the whole term, the happy parents blissfully unaware that they had a plan for their first child that didn’t involve the natural parents?
He scribbled down questions he needed the grandparents to answer: who did Owen Jones work for? Why had they gone private? Had there been any unusual events leading up to Luke’s – he crossed the name out; it was Ashley, not Luke – Ashley’s birth that they could remember? Were they present at the birth? When had they last seen the baby? He leaned back in his chair. There were so many questions, and they would open up the scars of the old couple’s grief – and it wasn’t as if Cass could ever give them anything positive at the end of it. Even if he was honest with them, what could he say? Yes, there was a mistake in the hospital and your real grandchild lived until he was blown apart by a shotgun while he slept in his bed? That would be a neat parcel of fresh grief to haunt them for their remaining years. There were some truths that people really didn’t need to know. He could show them photos, and tell them anecdotes, but they would never know the boy. No, best to leave it alone; they’d no doubt made their peace with their grief before losing their daughter.
His body was buzzing, but although the drug was doing its physical job, mentally it was dragging him down into his black mood, instead of lifting him out of it. He thought of Claire and Kate and Christian’s family and his parents, all gone, and none of them naturally. Was there a cloud of death around him? How did he remain so untouched?
He lit a cigarette and went over to the window to smoke it. Maybe he should just leave the search for the boy alone. Maybe the dying lawyer had been right; perhaps some envelopes were best left sealed. He breathed out into the London air. But he had opened it, and he couldn’t ignore his dead brother’s request. He owed it to Christian, the good brother. He owed it to all his family.
Violin music drifted up at him, and he found he wasn’t surprised. This time the tramp was playing ‘Summertime’, holding each long note perfectly between the bow and the strings. Cass didn’t look down. He didn’t give a shit who the musician was, or what he wanted. He could fuck off and play somewhere else.
Both phones started ringing at once, his mobile vibrating on the desk and the landline pealing out, cutting through the sound of the traffic and the strains of music from the old man outside. He picked up the mobile. There was no user name, simply the word International. Without answering, he checked the landline handset, which said the same. He stared at both for a moment, letting them continue with their demand to be answered. Coincidence? There were no coincidences, that’s what Mr Bright had said not so long ago. There is no glow.
He answered the mobile, and as soon as he pressed the Connect button, the landline stopped ringing. In his ear he heard ‘Summertime’, the notes a perfect match for those outside, but this music was clearly a recording, with more than one instrument playing, and someone singing the haunting lyrics across the surface. Cass stared at both phones, and then back at the window. What the fuck was going on?
‘Hello?’ he said. He’d meant to hang up, but the word had just slipped out. He knew what the fuck was going on. They were fucking with him. This was another part of whatever the game was that they had drawn his family into.
The laugh at the other end was soft and kind and sweet, like honey. It made Cass catch his breath. The music was lost behind it. His insides warmed as his blood pumped through his veins. He was suddenly hard.
‘The boy is the key,’ she said.
His cock throbbed. What was that accent? French? Russian? Neither and both.
‘Don’t let them keep the boy.’
The phone clicked off, and he was left with the dial tone. The violinist outside had stop
ped when he hung up. Cass wondered if the old man would even still be there if he looked out the window. His hands trembled, and he put the mobile down and sat at his desk. His balls ached even as his hard-on subsided. What had she done to him? No single voice had ever had such an effect on him. His insides burned. He was glowing. He could feel it. His vision sharpened on the edges of the shapes around him. Fuck this, he thought, taking a deep, shaky breath. She could fuck off too. He needed more drugs. He needed the arrogance cocaine could give him.
He wouldn’t let them keep the lost boy. He’d find him, but he wouldn’t do it for her or for anyone else. He’d find him for Christian, and woe betide anyone who got in his way.
Chapter Sixteen
Mr Bright said nothing as Mr Dublin peered through the hatch window into Mr Rasnic’s room. He hadn’t visited for more than a year. Mr Bright had thought maybe he wouldn’t come again, but he’d been wrong. Perhaps this trip to the First city in dark times had brought out the melancholy in Mr Dublin. The other man’s face remained still, but paled to the colour of his hair. The sight of one of their number like this could do that.
‘I still can’t believe it’s him. He was always so—’ He tilted his head sideways. ‘He was special, even among us.’ Mr Dublin’s voice was like running water, crisply melodic.
Mr Bright said nothing.
‘And now he’s just empty. Not my brother at all.’ Mr Dublin lit a slim turquoise Sobranie cigarette. On this quiet midnight hospital corridor there were no rules about smoking. Here, no outside rules applied.
‘Is there any change?’
‘No. Like the rest he’s less agitated, but that’s it. They’re almost catatonic these days.’
Mr Dublin took one last long look, and then closed the hatch. His mouth twisted a fraction, the only hint at his disgust. ‘He’s become like them. Has he any glow left at all?’
‘We can’t tell,’ Mr Bright said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then where the hell is it?’
‘Lost out in the chaos before the walkways, wherever they are.’ He turned and walked further into the heart of the building, past the guards standing outside various doors, and beyond where the First lay sleeping. Eventually he reached the atrium, and the indoor balcony that looked down on the activity on the floor below.
‘They came back without it,’ he said. ‘They were screaming.’ He looked over at the pale, slim man who had followed him. ‘I had never heard a sound like it. Not even before, during all the fighting.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us? The Cohort? Perhaps then some of the others would be less keen to try for the walkways themselves.’
They spoke softly as the men in white coats below them checked readings and adjusted heavy white equipment. No one looked up.
‘Solomon thought it was best no one knew the horrors they had suffered. I think perhaps he was right.’
‘This dying would be a mercy for them. Why doesn’t it take them?’ Mr Dublin’s question was merely thoughtful. Mr Bright had never heard him shout, or lose his temper or speak in a raised tone. In many ways, Mr Dublin was quite remarkable.
‘Are they half here and half out there?’
‘It would seem so. The Glow can’t be destroyed, so it must be somewhere.’
‘Then he is lost – this smaller body left behind isn’t him; it was never him, merely a coat.’ He let out a long breath of smoke. ‘Perhaps we should kill them.’
‘Then they would have no chance. As it stands there might come a time when we can restore them. Or they find their way back and restore themselves.’
Mr Dublin said nothing. He clearly wasn’t convinced, and Mr Bright didn’t blame him. It wasn’t an entirely honest answer. They needed to watch and see what happened. Maybe one day they would recover enough to speak, or at least to be one of them … if they could only let go of the madness. It would be interesting to see if it came about.
A scream ripped out through the atrium, and Mr Dublin visibly flinched, even as the men and women below continued in their work unfazed.
‘What is that?’
‘The experiment isn’t without pain, even for them. We’re making them see further than they ever have, and though we started using them so as not to lose any more of our own, when we enhance them they can travel further than we can. They don’t remember the pain when they leave, that we ensure.’ Mr Bright paused. He was surprised by how good it was to talk about these things to another. ‘It damages them, though. I think they leave something behind, too.’
‘What do they have to leave?’
‘Those with some Glow leave that. I think there is something more, however.’ He smiled. ‘I think perhaps they have this “soul” after all. Perhaps it is the Glow for them, some kind of downgrade of our own.’
Mr Dublin stared down towards the terrible sound, as if he could somehow see the colour of it. ‘Their capacity for pain astounds me.’ He looked over at Mr Bright. ‘He wasn’t very kind to them, was he?’
‘No. He was never very kind at all.’
As more screams followed the first one, they found the elevator and rode it up to the roof, where they walked out onto the terrace. The city still raged beneath them, despite the late hour and the fear of explosions. Streetlights shone down on the cars and taxis ferrying the masses through the streets. Neither Mr Bright nor Mr Dublin looked down.
The sky was clear above them, the air holding the first real chill of winter. Mr Bright smoked a thick cigar as Mr Dublin lit another of his elegant cigarettes. For a while they said nothing but stared up at the stars. Mr Bright decided that he liked Mr Dublin; there was a gentle kindness there that reminded him of Solomon. He was perhaps a touch maudlin at times, and he lacked the sort of fire Rasnic had had before the Experiment destroyed him, but beneath his fragile exterior was a quiet intellectual strength that Mr Bright respected. Also, though Rasnic was technically still alive, Mr Dublin understood the loss of a brother.
‘Do you think the others have forgotten?’ Mr Dublin asked. ‘How it really was, I mean?’
‘Some of them.’
‘Or perhaps it’s us,’ he added. ‘Have you considered that in all your machinations?’
Mr Bright said nothing to that. It had been such a very long time, and perhaps they had all changed – maybe even at the other end of the walkways. But he could clearly remember how he had felt then, the fights between the First and the despot, the need to take a side and fight on that side, the side of right. And then they’d collected the Unwanted and made their own Kingdom. Looking back, he wondered where they found the energy for it all.
‘I hope you’re right about your ennui, Mr Bright.’ Mr Dublin sounded sad. ‘It would be terrible for it to end like this, in a slow decay.’
Mr Bright drew on his cigar, which tasted hot and sweet. In a rare moment of self-pity he wished Solomon were here and the First would wake and they would be filled with the hope and the glory and the sheer joy of days gone by, when it was all new. He was the Architect; that was all. That he had become more to the Cohort was by chance – and as much as he enjoyed leading, and though he was well equipped for the task, he missed his brothers-in-arms. Their absence made him feel old.
‘I used to find it peaceful to look up at the sky.’ Mr Dublin’s perfect features looked like alabaster in the moonlight. ‘But now I know that somewhere out there, my brother is screaming. Him and the others.’ He ground out his cigarette beneath his Italian leather sole. ‘And those poor creatures in all their mortal pain as you tear at their minds, using them to serve our ends?’
He looked up again.
‘There’s no peace in it any more. We are merely standing in the shadow of their tormented souls.’
He smiled at Mr Bright; it was a beautifully pained expression. ‘In all of this, this ennui, this decay, I wake every day and give thanks that I am not you, Mr Bright.’ He turned away. ‘Take that as you will.’
Mr Bright stood in the half-light and finished his cigar. He smiled.
They had a long way to go before decay took hold. He would make sure of that.
‘Tell me you’ve got something.’ It was nearly eleven, and Cass had spent the past hour twiddling his thumbs at his desk, waiting for the secondary blood tests to come in. Eagleton had promised them by ten; if he’d known it was going to take this long he’d have gone and spoken to Elizabeth Gray’s parents on the way in.
He bit back his irritation; he knew how the labs operated, and he also knew that on top of the stress of the cases, and his urgent need to find Luke, he was also on a massive coke comedown. After the strange phone call of the night before, he’d stayed up and finished off the bag. The high had been good, but this was the payoff: now he felt like shit.
‘Certainly have.’ Eagleton was chirpy on the other end of the phone. ‘Nothing new, but something that could be relevant.’
Case put the call onto loudspeaker. ‘Spit it out.’
‘Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid. GHB. Liquid X. Call it what you will.’
‘You didn’t pick it up in the first tests? What is going on over there?’
‘Of course we picked it up.’ There was a hint of professional irritation in Eagleton’s voice. Here was another boy who was fast becoming a man. ‘There are two problems with finding GHB in the body. First, if it’s taken from an external source it only stays in the system a short while – four to six hours for the average dose. Second, and most pertinent, is that the body makes its own, post-mortem. I expected to find it, and I did – in all of the dead students. Lidster had slightly more than the others in his results, but every corpse breaks down differently. Now that we’re definitely looking at him as separate from the rest of the students, then the result might mean more. GHD is recreational, but would definitely work as a sedative if someone wanted to keep him alive until his wrists had been slit.’
‘Would it be easy to give it to someone without them knowing?’
The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two Page 17